Brazilian Ministry of Defense, Rio de Janeiro, office of the new Defense Minister.
After attending the inauguration ceremony of the new president, Fang Lang drove directly outside the minister's office and waited for General Moraes' summons.
It was not until after four o'clock in the afternoon that General Moraes arrived belatedly.
After seeing General Moraes return to the office, Fang Lang, who had been waiting outside the office, quickly stood up and saluted, not daring to show any dissatisfaction.
General Morais greeted Fang Lang very enthusiastically and said:
"Haha. Colonel Fang, we have met. No need to be polite! Come in and let us talk."
After speaking, he patted Fang Lang on the arm and strode into the office first.
After entering the office, he gestured to Fang Lang to sit down on the sofa in the living room, then picked up the coffee pot and brewed coffee for Fang Lang.
This made Fang Lang feel a little flattered, and he quickly stood up to help.
But he was stopped by General Morais and said:
"Just sit here, I have to brew the cup of coffee today."
Fang Lang also dealt with General Morais twice and understood that this kind of treatment is obviously not something that everyone can enjoy.
Seeing that the other party was resolute, he stopped refusing and just showed a flattered expression appropriately.
General Moraes did not make Fang Lang wait any longer. After brewing the coffee, he brought it to Fang Lang and said:
"For this inauguration of Mr. President, I heard that your company is already able to produce American 105MM howitzers.
This is quite remarkable.
I think when we were discussing naval construction, you could take the initiative to propose building our own modern shipyard in Brazil.
You have fulfilled your promise, which makes me happy.
Today I want to ask you, if your shipyard is asked to undertake the task of building warships, whether it can be completed. "
When Fang Lang heard that it was such a good thing, he immediately felt relieved.
However, he knew that there was a big difference between building container freighters and building warships, at least in the steel used. Therefore, I don’t dare to brag.
I can only say honestly:
"Your Excellency General, our shipyard has just started and is accumulating construction experience by manufacturing commercial ships.
If we just build warships now, I'm worried that something will go wrong due to lack of experience, and our family will be dead.
And, most importantly, our family has not yet found the material formula for armor steel for warships.
This time I went to Germany to see if I could have a chance to find the formula for ship armor steel.
However, due to time constraints, there is no harvest yet. "
After hearing what Fang Lang said, General Morais was obviously disappointed, but he quickly disappeared and continued:
"It's okay. I believe we can succeed. If there is anything you need me to do, please tell me directly and I will do my best to help you achieve it."
Fang Lang was very moved by General Morais' sincere concern.
Although Fang Lang also understood that the other party wanted to quickly give Brazil its own warship construction capabilities.
After thinking for a while, Fang Lang said:
"Don't worry! If I can't get the required formula from Germany, I think I can find a way from Italy."
During the conversation just now, Fang Lang suddenly remembered that when Global Shipbuilding acquired the shipyard in Genoa, Italy, there was a military shipyard next to it.
And it seemed to be mentioned at that time that many engineers from Italian military shipyards were recruited by Italy's Global Shipyard.
Now that the Minister of Defense has mentioned that he wants to build ships independently, the design capabilities of Brazil's domestic shipyards will begin to improve. Perhaps engineers and designers with experience in warship construction will be transferred from Global Shipbuilding's shipyards around the world. , the design team for the construction of Brazilian naval ships will soon be established.
Then you can start following the Brazilian Sea
In order to meet the needs of the military, the design work of warships began.
In fact, Fang Lang didn't want to start the construction of warships so early, because he knew that the current warships would soon be obsolete, and the future was the era of guided missile ships. It would be a waste to start building warships now.
Fortunately, after General Moraes heard that the technical problem of expert steel had not been solved, he did not continue to talk about the topic of independent shipbuilding. Instead, he changed the subject:
"I heard General Letta tell me today that you are planning to set up a small arms company yourself?"
Fang Lang didn't expect General Letta to report the matter directly to the Minister of Defense.
He was caught off guard for a moment and couldn't figure out the purpose of General Morais asking about this matter.
It can’t be that Mr. Minister of Defense wants to take part in it!
If General Moraes wanted to join the party, Fang Lang would not refuse. After all, being able to establish a relationship with General Moraes would definitely be of great benefit to his future in the army.
"Yes, General. I happened to meet a very good firearms designer in Germany this time, and chatted with him about some firearms design concepts and development trends.
I was accidentally persuaded by him, and I wanted to see if I could support his research, so I decided to set up a small arms company in Brazil. "
General Morais was obviously interested in Fang Lang's statement.
"Oh! I wonder if you can also talk to me about what you think of the development trend of firearms and what kind of design philosophy this designer has."
This made Fang Lang a little confused. I don't know how to view the development trend of firearms!
My thoughts are based on the weapons that eventually became mainstream in later generations. Now you ask me where this trend came from.
How do I know!
But now the Minister of Defense is asking, not bragging among brothers and friends, so I can’t say it, I guess!
After thinking for a while, Fang Lang still said:
“I also heard from the designer that I don’t have any mature ideas, but his words really convinced me.
If there is anything wrong, I hope you will not blame me. "
General Moraes heard Fang Lang's words, took a sip of coffee, and gestured to Fang Lang with a smile on his face to continue:
"This trend is mainly based on the fact that the German army used the G43 semi-automatic rifle in the war, which exposed its shortcomings of insufficient firepower when faced with machine gun suppression.
The range and accuracy of submachine guns cannot provide much help.
The weight and huge supply pressure of using a light machine gun are unacceptable.
At the end of the war, the elite German infantry squads began to be equipped with an STG-44 assault rifle. In actual combat, Allied soldiers using semi-automatic weapons had almost no chance of winning when they encountered German soldiers equipped with automatic rifles.
Automatic rifles rely on their fierce firepower, high accuracy, long range, good ergonomics, and mature and reliable technical performance to completely crush semi-automatic weapons.
Therefore, we believe that the future development trend of rifles must be automatic rifles with more powerful firepower, that is, assault rifles. "
Fang Lang's words made General Morais fall into deep thought, and after a while he asked:
"Then have you considered the ammunition consumption of using a fully automatic rifle?"
After all, he is not an American tycoon, and Brazil's economic conditions are not good, so the first problem that comes to General Moraes' mind is the terrifying ammunition consumption of fully automatic rifles.
Fang Lang can't say that the more ammunition I consume, the more I will earn!
He could only nod his head and say:
"Officially based on this consideration, I did not make a big deal about this matter. I was only prepared to use part of my own funds to support the research of new equipment."
Hearing Fang Lang's words, General Moraes' eyes were filled with admiration. After thinking for a moment, he asked:
"Have you ever considered that if a fully automatic rifle adopts burst mode, the strong recoil will instantly make the bullets behind it shoot into the sky? So what you call an automatic rifle
Wouldn’t the gun’s accuracy be lost? "
After all, the army is old, and General Morais easily discovered the shortcomings of current automatic rifles.
In fact, Fang Lang has already discovered this problem, but he plans to wait for Ludwig Folger to come to Brazil before proposing changes.
After all, the rifle bullets used by various countries now are basically full-power large-caliber bullets, especially Germany's full-power 7.92mm*57mm bullets.
This kind of bullet can be used as a bolt-action rifle or semi-automatic rifle, and there is no problem with the range of more than 800 meters.
However, the bullets used in automatic rifles are obviously too powerful.
All calibers later used by both the Soviet Union and NATO were 7.62MM.
The Soviet Union used intermediate-power bullets earlier than the United States, so the AK47 uses intermediate-power bullets with a bullet length of 39MM.
NATO used rifle ammunition, which resulted in the effective range of the G3 assault rifle using NATO standard ammunition of 400 meters, which exceeded the effective range of the AK47 of 300 meters.
Of course, what we are talking about here is the effective range! The standard range of the AK47 is 800 meters, and the maximum killing range is 1,500 meters.
Fang Lang also knew that most of the rifles of later generations used 5.56 caliber. Later, he disliked the poor armor-breaking ability of 5.56 and began to study 6.8-caliber bullets.
These are things that happened half a century later, and it is impossible for Fang Lang to do such advanced things.
After all, what will be good in future generations may not necessarily be the most appropriate for today's era.
In fact, a bullet of a certain size had already appeared in Fang Lang's mind.
That is, Czechoslovakia has a medium-power bullet, and Fang Lang thinks it is very good.
Although the recoil may be slightly greater than that of AK, it is definitely less than the recoil of using NATO standard bullets.
If not, just remind Ludwig Folger to add a muzzle brake in front of the muzzle!
Wouldn’t such recoil and power be more appropriate?
"General, this requires us to convert full-power bullets into intermediate-power bullets."
As soon as these words were spoken, General Moraes immediately understood what Fang Lang meant, but changing bullets was much more stressful than changing firearms.
The manufacture of firearms generally revolves around bullets.
Fortunately, Brazil currently does not have its own bullet standards.
However, all the bullets used by the Brazilian army now are American bullets, which are the standard bullets for the American M1 Garand rifle.
If the bullets need to be replaced, it means that all the bullets in stock in the country will be scrapped, and the loss will be huge.
Suddenly, General Moraes became in a dilemma. Of course he wanted to support Fang Lang in localizing light weapons, but if the caliber of bullets was to be changed, such a thing would affect the whole body.
It's impossible for him to decide it alone.
Although General Moraes has not yet confirmed whether the development trend of light weapons mentioned by Fang Lang is correct, this does not affect Moraes's desire to support Fang Lang.
